History & Geography · Grade 7

Active learning ideas

The Catholic Church's Influence

Active learning works for this topic because students need to see how power structures shaped daily life, not just memorize facts. By stepping into roles, analyzing sources, and mapping connections, they grasp the Church's embedded presence in society rather than treating it as a distant institution.

• Ontario Curriculum Expectations
• ON: New France and British North America, 1713–1800 - Grade 7

• 30–50 min
• Pairs → Whole Class
• 4 activities

Activity 01

• Jigsaw
• 45 min · Small Groups

Role-Play: Church in Daily Life

Assign roles such as priest, settler family, and Indigenous leader to small groups. Have them enact scenarios like a marriage dispute or mission encounter, incorporating historical details from readings. Debrief with groups sharing how Church influence appeared in their skit.

Explain the sources of the Catholic Church's authority and power in New France.

Facilitation Tip

In the Role-Play: Church in Daily Life activity, assign clear roles (e.g., settler, priest, Indigenous leader) and provide scenario cards with specific tasks to keep interactions focused on the Church’s influence.

What to look for

Pose this question to the class: 'Imagine you are a settler in New France in the 1750s. How would the Catholic Church's authority affect your daily decisions regarding education, marriage, and community involvement?' Facilitate a discussion where students share their imagined experiences.

• Understand
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Relationship Skills
• Self-Management

Activity 02

• Stations Rotation
• 50 min · Small Groups

Stations Rotation: Sources of Power

Create stations with documents like royal edicts, Jesuit letters, and Ursuline records. Groups rotate, noting evidence of Church authority in politics, education, and missions. Each group summarizes one source's insight for the class.

Analyze how religious institutions shaped daily life and community values.

Facilitation Tip

During the Station Rotation: Sources of Power activity, place visual aids like maps or church records at each station to help students connect documents to real-world power dynamics.

What to look for

Provide students with a short primary source excerpt, such as a letter from a missionary or a description of a church service. Ask them to identify two specific ways the Church's influence is demonstrated in the text and one potential challenge faced by the author or subjects.

• Remember
• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Self-Management
• Relationship Skills

Activity 03

• Jigsaw
• 35 min · Pairs

Debate Pairs: Conversion Effectiveness

Pair students to debate the Church's success in converting Indigenous peoples, using evidence from both sides. Provide pros like baptisms and cons like cultural resistance. Pairs present key arguments to the class for voting.

Evaluate the effectiveness of the Church's efforts to convert Indigenous populations.

Facilitation Tip

For the Debate Pairs: Conversion Effectiveness activity, give each pair a pro/con list of arguments beforehand so they focus on evidence rather than opinions.

What to look for

Ask students to write down one specific example of how the Church shaped social life in New France and one question they still have about the Church's relationship with Indigenous peoples.

• Understand
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Relationship Skills
• Self-Management

Activity 04

• Jigsaw
• 30 min · Whole Class

Whole Class: Influence Mapping

Project a New France map or timeline. As a class, students call out Church impacts on regions or events, which you annotate. Students then add personal notes on social or political effects.

Explain the sources of the Catholic Church's authority and power in New France.

Facilitation Tip

In the Whole Class: Influence Mapping activity, use a large shared map and colored pins to track how power spread across social, political, and cultural domains over time.

What to look for

Pose this question to the class: 'Imagine you are a settler in New France in the 1750s. How would the Catholic Church's authority affect your daily decisions regarding education, marriage, and community involvement?' Facilitate a discussion where students share their imagined experiences.

• Understand
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Relationship Skills
• Self-Management

A few notes on teaching this unit

Experienced teachers approach this topic by grounding discussions in primary sources and lived experiences. Avoid framing the Church as a monolithic force; instead, highlight its partnerships, tensions, and adaptations. Research shows students retain more when they analyze how institutions shaped—and were shaped by—individuals.

Successful learning looks like students demonstrating how the Church’s influence intersected with politics, education, and Indigenous experiences. They should articulate specific examples of collaboration, resistance, or continuity, not just describe general religious roles.

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Watch Out for These Misconceptions

• During the Station Rotation: Sources of Power activity, watch for students assuming the Church operated independently from colonial authorities. Redirect them to compare documents from the governor’s office and church records to see overlapping priorities.

  During the Station Rotation: Sources of Power activity, have students highlight passages in each source that mention collaboration or shared goals between the Church and colonial leaders, then discuss these overlaps in small groups.

• During the Debate Pairs: Conversion Effectiveness activity, watch for students claiming Indigenous peoples converted easily or uniformly. Redirect their focus to the role-play scenarios that highlight resistance and cultural clashes.

  During the Debate Pairs: Conversion Effectiveness activity, ask each pair to incorporate at least one Indigenous perspective from the role-play cards into their debate arguments to challenge the idea of uniform conversion.

• During the Whole Class: Influence Mapping activity, watch for students assuming the Church’s influence disappeared after New France’s fall. Redirect them to trace how its structures persisted in modern institutions.

  During the Whole Class: Influence Mapping activity, assign small groups to research a specific institution (e.g., a school or hospital) and add it to the map to show continuity into the 19th or 20th century.

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Methods used in this brief

• Jigsaw
• Stations Rotation